AN INGROSSER OF CORN.
There is no vermin in the land like him: he slanders both heaven and
earth with pretended dearths when there is no cause of scarcity. He
hoarding in a dear year, is like Erysicthon's bowels in Ovid: _Quodque
urbibus esset, quodque satis poterat populo, non sufficit uni_. He prays
daily for more inclosures, and knows no reason in his religion why we
should call our forefathers' days the time of ignorance, but only
because they sold wheat for twelve pence a bushel. He wishes that
Dantzig were at the Moluccas, and had rather be certain of some foreign
invasion than of the setting up of the steelyard. When his barns and
garners are full, if it be a time of dearth, he will buy half a bushel
in the market to serve his household, and winnows his corn in the night,
lest, as the chaff thrown upon the water showed plenty in Egypt, so his
carried by the wind should proclaim his abundance. No painting pleases
him so well as Pharaoh's dream of the seven lean kine that ate up the
fat ones, that he has in his parlour, which he will describe to you like
a motion, and his comment ends with a smothered prayer for a like
scarcity. He cannot away with tobacco, for he is persuaded (and not much
amiss), that 'tis a sparer of bread-corn, which he could find in his
heart to transport without license; but, weighing the penalty, he grows
mealy-mouthed, and dares not. Sweet smells he cannot abide; wishes that
the pure air were generally corrupted; nay, that the spring had lost her
fragrancy for ever, or we our superfluous sense of smelling (as he terms
it), that his corn might not be found musty.
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